Quibbling Sanity
by Melpomene melancholica
Summary: another one of my dumping grounds for oneshots, drabbles, and inbetweens.
1. Urban Legends

Disclaimer: Hatori Bisco's work. Borrowing for self-entertainment. (That didn't sound too... wholesome, did it?)

**Quibbling Sanity**

- a dumping ground for one-shots, drabbles, and in-betweens. Based on the LJ community 31days themes.

Urban Legends

_August 31 / Peace it is, till the rising of dawn_

"With his cherub's face and prepubescent roundness, he lies nestled among the indulgent fabrics, as if never to awaken from that gentle repose sweeter than his namesake. A mortal woven in betwixt and between Hypnos and Thanatos, he is Endymion, selfishly suspended by Selene into a reality all his own, all innocence and utter helplessness, the epitome of all things cute and the ultimate test for one's ability to restrain one's deeply seated parental instincts!

"As with every enchantment, of course, a preordained moment comes, when the magic breaks and all things good then falls apart to yield unto the monstrous, the calamitous, the antediluvian. . .

"Flee. Flee before then! And pray that you are back in safe in the confines of your own chambers, tucked in your own beds—under the covers, if need be!—before the first light of dawn strikes the frigid earth."

Having thus finished, Suoh Tamaki collapsed upon the bouncy carpet, stark white around his eyes, his panting the only thing audible in the following hush.

". . . That's an urban legend?" Haruhi finally ventured. "Honey-senpai waking up?"

"Tono actually did well this time," remarked Hikaru.

"Last time it was about toe-eating socks," added Kaoru.

"Lame!" they callously announced in chorus.

"It wasn't that bad," Tamaki protested. "True, my choice of that particular urban legend begs improvement, but it was my first and should be given due consideration. My delivery, however, cannot be so harshly criticized. My artistic exploitation of the wide range of intonations the human voice is capable of was highly laudable. You cannot totally ignore the merits of that tale. My performance was stupendous and—"

Haruhi ignored the king's monologue and continued to look dubious.

"If you're so fixated on the idea," Kyouya suddenly spoke up. "Why don't we all we have that commoner thing called slumber party at Honey-senpai's home and discover whether those stories are true or not?"

"Uh, no, I think I'll pass."

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Index:

1. Urban Legends. (The host club)

2. Rose-colored Glasses (Eclair Tonnerre)

3. Win (Tamaki, Haruhi; future)

4. Christmas Lights (Nekozawa Umehito, Kirimi)

5. Against Zeus, Etc (Tamaki, Haruhi)


	2. Rosecolored glasses

Disclaimer: Hatori Bisco's work. Borrowing for self-entertainment. (That didn't sound too... wholesome, did it?)

Rose-colored Glasses

_October 3: snow white rose red_

Warning for possible spoilers. If you don't know who Eclaire is. )

(Entrance)

She lounged on her private jet, cat-like, peering through her opera glasses, scouting the lay of the land. She was neither impressed nor disappointed----it was conquerable realm, but her interest lay elsewhere.

Accommodation was adequate; hotels had a certain sameness throughout the world. A pink and black arrangement of roses rose from the center of the cavernous penthouse. She was piqued, had paused her saunter to stare at it through her opera glasses.

(Interval)

Roses had thorns. Being wounded by props was not necessarily a bad thing, as it made one more connected to the setting. She discovered she was neither the puppet master nor a mere spectator, just as she discovered that the roses weren't brackish black or weakling pink. The passionate red on innocent white was as beguiling as the faint throb of her tiny cuts.

(Exit)

On the way out, she sat, coated with a withdrawn silence, regal and proper. The feline air still lingered, especially in the sharp, vivid eyes. She was primarily woman, right now: simple, haughty, undecipherable. Her hands twitched, aching for the feel of the metal wand on the pads of her fingers.

She had discarded the toy, as was her manner, as it was no longer of use to her.

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	3. Win

Disclaimer: Hatori Bisco's work. Borrowing for self-entertainment. (That didn't sound too... wholesome, did it?)

Win

_October 6: overwork_

21:54

Five minutes has passed midnight, but some lights were still open in the upscale, conservative law firm. As usual, Fujioka Haruhi was one of those working towards another all-nighter. Regardless of her feelings about the. . . priorities of the associate she was currently working under, she was determined to present a flawless case tomorrow.

She looked up from her notes to rest her eyes. She blinked, disbelieving what she saw for a moment—not the identity of the person standing before her, of course. What she couldn't believe was the fact he hadn't announced his presence with flourishes and sweeping bows the moment he had walked in.

"Tamaki-senpai." Habits were hard to break. "What are you doing here?"

"Just seeing to the well being of my dearest daughter," he answered sedately. "Good morning, Haruhi."

"Good, uh, morning, senpai," Haruhi followed his low key example, watching him cautiously. "You're out. . . early."

"Quite early," Tamaki agreed. "I usually rise three hours later, but I suddenly remembered something pressing."

"Oh."

"Aren't you at all curious about the matter that disturbed my slumber?"

She sighed. "What woke you up, senpai?"

"Your sleeping and eating habits concerns me, my child. I have discussed it with Kyouya earlier, and he agrees it is exceedingly unhealthy."

"Tamaki," she said firmly. "Your concern is noted, appreciated, but at the moment, unwanted. Go home; go back to sleep; let me finish my work."

"But Suoh mansion number one is so lonely," he murmured.

"Move back to mansion number two."

"But that would offend grandmother."

"Sleep in your grandmother's room tonight. Keep her company."

"But that would give greater offense."

"Kyoya—"

"Has just flown for Amsterdam."

"Hikaru and Kaoru."

"The Hitachiin twins are in Sydney, and the cousins are in Rio de Janeiro."

"Senpai," she said in dull desperation. "You can be lonely any other day this week, except today. Please."

Now, it was Tamaki who sighed. "It's not like I can deny you anything, mon ami," he said fondly. "Well, I shall go now, as you wish."

"Thanks." Haruhi glanced at him as he started for the door. Even in his pajamas, Tamaki carried himself like the gilded prince that he was.

"Incidentally," he added, poking his blond head back into the room. "The Ohtori group has taken over another health insurance company----they're maintaining the fiction of otherwise for the sake of a competitive market. I thought you might be interested."

"Let me guess," Haruhi said sarcastically.

"Oh, but as Kyouya is still heir apparent, I am sure they would give you no trouble with your claims should your health be compromised these trying days."

Haruhi said nothing, but began to gather her things.

"May I offer the services of my chauffeur?" Tamaki said brightly.

"No."

"Even better! I shall walk with you."

"You know, it really shows how much time you've spent with Kyoya."

"I thought it was your influence working this time, Haruhi. After all, it was a rather well presented argument."

And there wasn't really anything she could say to that: a win was a win.

00:10 100706


	4. Christmas Lights

Disclaimer: Hatori Bisco's. Borrowing.

Christmas Lights

_dormant muses: Dear Santa: The December Anonymous Writing Challenge_

_request reads as: Holiday short fic/drabble: Umehito Nekozawa, Kirimi (Ouran High School Host Club) --NOT incest mind you_

_Prompt: "Christmas Lights"_

Little Kirimi of the Nekozawa household was well-known to be not-so-fond of darkness. The nighttime outings that were occasionally held by the clan were thus sources of sheer, unholy terror. Despite appearances, her family was loving and flexible. They stopped including their poor little princess into such traditional rituals, instead allowing her to bask in a world saturated by light, laughter, and sweetness.

(And shoujo manga. Apparently, shoujo manga somehow went well with the aforesaid.)

Christmas was a particularly important holiday for Kirimi-chan. You see, Valentines and White Day were yet to be personally interesting for her, because she didn't really have any particular interest in boys, beyond occasional playmates. They were enjoyable enough to read in the inevitable scenes that any self-respecting mangaka would include in his/her work, but Christmas didn't seem to need to have a couple involved to make it interesting. Besides, Christmas had always promised delightful things for the blue-eyed little girl.

Kirimi-chan have come to greet Christmas morns with brimming cheerfulness, for she would usually find her lacy, white-coordinated room (the white tower as opposed to the black one in another distant wing of the mansion) overflowing with all manner of presents. Trinkets, sweets, pretty dresses, cosplay costumes. . . they were all wrapped with colorful, finely-textured, handmade paper, in an obviously loving manner, and laid out under a heavily-decorated Christmas tree.

Oniichama, her prince, was good with his hands, everyone around her said. Only recently had she met this sweet person, for she later learned that he was plagued by a serious affliction: he could only manifest in the cloak of night (or really, really thick drapes). In light of this, (no pun intended), Kirimi-chan came to communicate with her brother through correspondence. The little girl was doing quite well in writing, what with her massive consumption of comics enabling her to encounter a good variety of even kanji. Of course, Oniichama sometimes went into long, spiraling stories about dark armies and witches locked up in towers. Kirimi didn't really read a lot of dark fantasy stuff.

That Christmas, Kirimi decided she wanted to do something special for her brother. He wrote to ask what Oniichima wanted. Christmas dinner for the whole family, was the startling response he wrote back, with a promise that he would take care of the necessary arrangements.

Unknown to the little miss, it was not the young master Umehito who wrote such a thing, but one Suoh Tamaki, president of the Ouran High Host Club. Apparently, Nekozawa had gone to the Third Music Room to ask for advice, and it was given to him after merely a few seconds' consideration.

Nekozawa had goggled at the piece of paper in consternation, even Belzeneef momentarily forgotten.

"Ah, be not troubled, my man," the blond, toweringly confident club president assured him. "The fraternal stirring of your penumbral bosom shall fail not in conquering the apogee of the creative prowess of the human mind. Fear not, says I! Not one of the gracious muses shall abandon the sublime, immaculate designs of your desperate desire to please your beloved sibling. Why! Wasn't it the estimable Virgil who said that love conquers all? _Omnia vincit Amor_! Even the most crippling of phobias, dare I say—"

Luckily, Ohtori Kyouya had a more practical approach.

So it happened on Christmas Eve, the Nekozawa mansion glowed with festive incandescence. The brilliant sparkle of the overhead chandelier was decidedly missing from the dining hall, but it was ablaze with a prism of lights—beguiling indigo and enticing scarlet, a spattering of oddly toxic greens amidst the blithe giggling of blues, and of course, the familiar cheerful yellow—flickering and titillating little tongues of lights.

"Candles?" Kirimi ventured.

"They're not as bad on my eyes," her oniichama explained haltingly.

"Christmas lights!" Kirimi said, wide-eyed. "They don't dance the same was as the ones at school, but they're even prettier."

Now, the good thing about his obsession with the occult was his access to a great deal of wax and a number of chemicals from questionable sources. Young master Nekozawa Umehito handcrafted all those candles, with some help from his trusted Belzeneef, who woefully was now quite encrusted with wax. His life would have been easier of course, if Kyouya actually told him earlier that those candles could be acquired online—

"I love Oniichama!"

—but those wouldn't have been as priceless as these ones.

02:34 121707


	5. Against Zeus, etc

Disclaimer: Borrowing Hatori Bisco's work. No harm done, ne?

Against Zeus, etc

_August 5: Oh yes, with a gust of wind / Will come the one you seek_

One of the things in this foreign land she had in startling excess was space. Fujioka Haruhi knew that the United States comprised practically a third of a continent. Central Florida was all freeways and plains, snaking rivers of gray asphalt winding about and around stretches of greens. And the skies: they spread from all directions as if to forever. A quick research about the region, prior the convention she came here for, had fairly versed her with what to expect. Orlando being in the tropics, she knew to expect monsoon rains, as well as the scattered thunderstorms the weatherman blithely predicted in the local news channel she had a glimpsed of in the airport, while waiting to pick up her baggage.

That, of course, did not stop the trepidation slowly winding around her as those enormous, formerly cloudless, blues began to darken that first afternoon. Even the jetlag failed to serve as an anxiolytic. She was gradually, ever so gradually, sinking into the miasmic hole of unreasoning terror, where there was only her and her alone, where open air merely afforded more space for fear to invade, to percolate into a solid, sentient threat. . .

. . . and everywhere she looked where windows and windows—wide-spanning from floor to ceiling, from one end of the posh hotel room to another. The furniture was modern and sleek; they afforded no corners or crevices for concealment. A closet, then, or the bathroom, she decided. The bathroom, the bathroom—

But her hasty shuffling was halted when the familiar flash of silver and lavender came, the electricity seemingly jolting her as well, from the base of her spine and up. She cowered and curled up right where she was, prepared for the raging retort the earth prepared to hurl against heaven's attack, the reverberating crack of the fractured firmament echoing in her head.

She opened her eyes suddenly, wonderingly. The successive booms were too impotent and too rhythmic—knocks against heavy hardwood. Wide-eyed, Haruhi took a split second to decide, then sprinted for the door and hurled it open, hurled herself onto the person to which it opened to.

A gasp.

"H-haruhi?"

At that very moment, that usually irksome voice was a gift from God. Haruhi did not even ask how her former senpai, that singular, irritating man who formed a very successful host club in an elite high school, of all places, was somehow transplanted thousands of mile from Japan, was somehow there.

"Haruhi?!" the mellifluous voice issued forth once again, seemingly coming from much farther than she was expecting. . . "Belatedly as it is—there is no word in creation sufficient to express my abject shame and self-flagellation—I do realize how desperately my dearest, sweetest daughter yearns for the sublime tenderness of fierce paternal protection in this renowned den of the gods of thunder themselves, Zeus and Thor, Raijin and Ajisukitakahikone, which is why dear Daddy promptly flew all the way here, as soon as Mommy directed my attention to our beloved Haruhi's predicament. But, my love, I expressly beg you—nay, I entreat you with all my heart and soul: please, let go of the poor man!"

Haruhi dazedly relinquished the bellhop, but was spared the agony of apologizing, when the real thunder finally hit. Suoh Tamaki took it upon himself to engulf her in a fervent bear hug, clucking comfortingly as he led his former kouhai back to her room.

The bellboy was left standing in the hallway. He took a few moments to recover from the strange reunion of the two customers, then shrugged. Apparently, the blond gentleman didn't have any luggage with him, anyway, so he was free to go back to where he could be at another patron's disposal.

00:18 080607

AN: This was written way before the "Christmas Lights," but I've forgotten about this till I stumbled on it in 31days.


End file.
